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Raze’s palm comes down against the table. “Why?”
“I… I don’t know.” Echo shakes her head. “But I heard it pulling. Every time Malgrave used his power, that third presence pulled harder on the combination.”
“You said you heard it,” Scar says. “Not sensed it?”
Echo freezes.
My attention snaps straight back to her.
She looks at Scar for several seconds before answering, “Yeah.”
Sentinel turns toward her. “Echo.”
She rubs one hand over the opposite arm. “There was a sound beneath it.”
“What kind of sound?” Raze asks.
“Low, deep enough that I felt it before I really heard it.” Her eyes drift toward me. “It was buried underneath Carnage’s hellfire and Sentinel’s Grace, but once I found it, I couldn’t stop hearing it.”
I shift my weight forward, ready to move, before I catch myself—I don’t like where this is going, not one fucking bit.
“Was it speaking?” Scar asks.
Echo hesitates. “I think so.”
Sentinel’s wings shift beneath his cut. “What did it say?”
“I couldn’t understand it. I don’t even know if it was using words.” Echo’s fingers tighten around her arm. “But the longer I listened, the more aware it felt.”
My hellhound stops pacing, and every instinct inside me turns toward her.
“Aware of what?” Roxy asks softly.
Echo looks down at her hands. “Me.”
I’m moving before anyone else has a chance to react, stepping around Echo’s chair and coming to a stop beside her. My hand goes to the back of her neck, needing the contact almost as much as I need to know she’s still fucking here.
Echo leans into me for half a second, then her eyes move to Sentinel’s hand.
The burn across his palm is still red and angry.
“When I stopped touching Carnage, I could still hear it,” she says. “Fainter, but it came with me. Then Sentinel touched my shoulder.”
Raze’s attention drops to the burn. “And his Grace reacted.”
Sentinel gives a grim nod. “The second it touched whatever she brought back with her.”
Echo flinches.
Brought back. I hate those fucking words.
My hand tightens at her neck.
“I didn’t mean to bring anything back.”
“I know,” Sentinel says immediately, his voice losing some of its edge. “Nobody thinks you did.”
She looks at his palm anyway.
